


Mercurial

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Episode: s03e01 Ride, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23734804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: “You're attractive, but I’m not sleeping with you.”It’s a wonder he doesn’t choke on his whiskey.
Relationships: Joss Bixby/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	Mercurial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstridContraMundum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/gifts).



> First line taken from a prompt list and this is the result. For Astrid, because I count her as the font of all Morse/Bixby content and thought she might like something for that pairing. I hope I've written Bixby okay!?

“You're attractive, but I’m not sleeping with you.”

It’s a wonder he doesn’t choke on his whiskey. A second later, he would have. As it is, he holds it in his mouth, wondering if when he swallows it will catch and make him cough. In the end, it’s find out or spit it out, so he swallows in a gulp. It runs like fire down his chest, but good fire - none of the burn of the cheap, got-rut stuff he buys, this is all spice and licking flames.

“Excuse me?”

It’s a beat too late; a beat where they both know he considered the idea.

Bixby sits on the edge of his desk. His legs stretch out long in front of him, crossed at the ankle. His hands are gathered in his lap, but as Morse watches, he moves them to rest on solid wood, and leans back on the palms. It’s a movement entirely incongruous with his announcement unless he was looking to be cruel - to dangle cake in front of a starving boy. Bixby is an enigma, but he’s not cruel.

Not that Morse is starving.

“I think you heard me, Morse.” His lips quirk, that little half-smile that captures his gaze like a moth to light.

“Well, good. Fine.”

“Is it?”

He says nothing, just watches as Bixby curls up from his sprawl and sweeps up the bottle of whiskey. He pours a measure into Morse’s glass, settling himself on the arm of Morse's chair. He’s had more than enough with the party, and this, now, but he raises the whiskey to his lips anyway. Lets pleasing fire spark across his tongue again.

“When did someone last tell you you’re beautiful?” Bixby uses the same measured tone he’s been using all evening; the one with a hint of mystery, on the edge of flirtation. It feels different spoken from centimetres away.

“They haven’t,” he answers honestly. It’s not something people say about men, after all, and it’s not true to boot. He knows women sometimes look twice at him, but they do the same to Jakes, and he’d never be called beautiful. Susan used to trace his lips with her finger, whisper in his ear about his little boy lost look, how he made people want to take care of him, before she’d capture him in a kiss. But that was years ago, before so much. Before she left. Kay had giggled and whispered to Elva at the picnic, something about pretty eyes. He’d let the memory slide until just now, not sure he wanted to hear that about himself, but sure it couldn’t have been uttered about Bruce.

“The failings of the world,” Bixby murmurs, and takes his glass from him. He feels unanchored, watching Bixby tip amber liquid down his own throat, then set the crystal out of reach.

“I am in love,” Bixby continues, slow enough for a pull in his gut that echoes in his chest. “If I wasn’t… I would fix that.”

He’s not sure if it’s the alcohol making him brave, or the faraway look on Bixby’s face. The words slip out all the same. “You’d sleep with me?”

“Morse,” Bixby grins, suddenly. “It would be a crime for two attractive souls such as ourselves not to.”

A crime is the one thing it would be, of course, and perhaps not the only one he's committed. Come from nowhere, with pockets full and heart open - there’s something about Joss Bixby, some undercurrent he can’t figure out. It’s probably what has him here rather than halfway back to the fishing shack - he’s always liked a puzzle. It’s not that he noticed the sharp line of Bixby’s jaw, or the humour sparkling in his eyes. It’s not the pretty words that fall from curved lips.

“But you’re in love.”

“Alas.” He’s gone again, Morse thinks. Mercurial, in and out, on and off. Whoever this person is, they’re lucky. And stupid, to not be in Morse’s chair right now, to not take what’s offered and give back more.

“It’s late.” He stands up, stepping back to put space between them. “Bix?”

He looks up. “Sorry old man.”

There’s something that feels a little wrong about leaving him here, sinking under the weight of a lost love. But he’s not sure what he could offer, whiskey-drunk and tired as he is. No wisdom, no clever words, and certainly not himself, strange as that seems; a possibility never considered until honey-laced sounds dripped into his ear and - almost. 

He’s not right, at the moment. He knows that. He’d thought Tony’s world a simple one, when it came down to it - behind the money and the flash it’s just the intricacies of upper class etiquette; incomprehensible to most, but full of rules and precedents, no room for deviation. He’d lived in it before, that summer after first year, so he’d thought he could nest in it now and forget what came between. But while Tony and Bruce have calcified, Bixby landed. And blew their world wide open. It's still different enough to Oxford's cobbles and prison doors to pretend... that he's fine.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, at the lake.”

There’s no response. He lets himself out of the large double doors and walks across the garden to the edge of the woods. When he turns, he sees light still shining in that window, and a trail of his footprints across dew-wet grass. Another night - one less drink, or one drink more. Almost. Those footprints might not exist. That trail might not have been taken until the sun had already burned moisture from the earth, and maids and guests might have caught a scruffy-haired half policeman scurrying for the cover of woodland. Or tracks might be left of a different kind; scuffed gravel and the acrid whiff of burned petrol, and a sporty little Jaguar parked outside a fishing shack.

It’s unnerving, the way paths and possibilities split and curve away. The concept of almost. Is almost the same as never? Or do paths that curve come back across themselves eventually? 

He sighs, trudging through undergrowth until he meets the main track and the going gets easier. It will take him all along the edge of the lake to his own bed, cool and empty as the sun rises.

Almost. Maybe. 

Never say never.


End file.
